Day 134 – Out of the haze and onto a train

My temperature at 1am this morning was still 40.3 degrees. By 4:30am however, it had fallen to 38.4, and by 8am, it was a normal 36.7.

Had this happened a day later, I would have been in a tent in the middle of the desert on my way to the town Merv. Sweating like I did when coming down off that 40 degree fever, I would have been in serious, serious trouble has I been in a tent whose temperature would surely have been below zero.

I still have crazy diahorrea though. The food here in Turkmenistan is terrible, so even though I am very hungry, I don’t have an apetite. I ordered a pizza (pizza is my favourite food for when I have no apetite) at a fancy ish restaurant, and was served a pizza consisting of cheeze, mutton, onions, and of course, salt. Way too much salt, way too much mutton, and way too much onion in this country. They have pies of the same constituent here. They are terrible…

So at least all is well as far as the fever is concerned, so I was able to buy a ticket for the train bound for Ashgabat. Leaves at 6pm. Cost of ticket is 40,000 mannat (less than US$2). Gets to Ashgabat at around 8am tomorrow.

I get to the train station at 5:30pm, and am told that I can’t take my bike on the train, because there is no baggage car. No dramas however as there is another train at 7pm with a baggage car.

All checked in baggage gets checked in at a different building. It cost 20,000 mannat for the baggage processing fee, and I was asked to pay 50,000 mannat to the baggage handler because it was a heavy bike. What a joke. Not wanting to tick anyone off however, I paid all requested money, and all was well.

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14degrees Off the Beaten Track is my (Rob Thomson's) online home. I live in Sapporo City, which is in Hokkaido, Japan's northern-most island. I am a guy with a day-job as a professor at Hokusei Gakuen University, but I like to explore new places and share the experience. I still haven't found the bottom of Hokkaido's enchanting depths. Cycle touring and backcountry ski touring are what keep me occupied here these days on my days off. Previously I cycled from Japan to Switzerland via Central Asia, and I hold the Guinness World Record for the Longest Journey by Skateboard (12,159km).